Sunday, 29 May 2011

Would anyone like to have a boob making session with me? Who doesn't know someone affected by breast cancer?

I lost my Gran when I was 16, My Dad, in 2001 was one of about 300 men a year diagnosed with breast cancer at about the same time as my Godmother, sadly she did not recover as my Dad did so this cause and raising of awareness is very dear to my heart.

It is national quilting day on the 4th June, if and it is a big IF the weather is fine would anyone like to have a meet up in the park, say 2pm or Blooms coffee shop if the weather is wet. It would be an opportunity to look at my Dear Jane blocks again. Who am I kidding, ice cream in the park or tea and cake at Blooms amd chatting to other quilters.

Unfortunately I need to go shopping (I hate shopping) for a new bigger handbag as I need to make room for these

I have known for some time I needed them but have been putting it off. Now I realise what I have been missing and why headaches have become a feature of my life.

Mr Chaos and Maser Chaos number 1 literally cried with laughter at the thought of me being the sort of old lady that has her glasses round her neck, dangling on a string and spends all morning looking for them. I failed to see the funny side especially when I could not find them at bed time and they were on the top of my head!

Wednesday, 25 May 2011

A very colourful quilt pieced by my friend Holly, I SID round the blocks, stipple quilted the purple border and sashing and put a flower in the pieced blocks.

I hope she likes it !

Well I am glad to say she collected it last night and does like it, I can breathe a huge sigh of relief and eat all the chocolates she bought me. Thank you Holly.

I was persuaded by my family some time ago to try Google Chrome, I usually use Explorer, and have had a right game signing in to blogger today, while reading some help pages they mentioned chrome and fire fox. It seems if you have signed in with one of these, blogger wont let you go back to whatever you usually use. I don't know if that makes any sense to anyone with more technical know how than me I only know that it has taken me an age to log on today and I was only able to do it through Chrome.Till next time

Friday, 20 May 2011

This is a picture of my group trying out their free motion quilting skills. I volounteered to do this a few months ago without realising of course how busy I would be with the Japan quilts. Perhaps just as well as I didn't have too much time to get too nervous.

Workshops are a really difficult thing to plan when you don't know how many ladies will be there, what their level of experience is, how long activities will take but mostly what they expect of you.

I was joined by Gill, Jane, Rosemary, Paula and Margaret. In the photo we are joined by Chris and Dorothy.A shot from the other end of the room shows other groups busy too! I hope I didn't bombard them with too much information they certainly didn't have much time to chat. I spoke about machine set up, which can be a bit of trial and error, needles, thread, helpful gagets, batting choice, especially on a bigger project with an example of a poor choice which resulted in difficulty with quilting and a stiff quilt and a good choice which was easier to quilt and is lovely and snuggly, even density of quilting across a quilt. My ladies were lovely and hopefully went away with a few ideas as well as a bit more confidence to give it a go and practice.

My last picture shows what I came back with from my visit to Malvern quilt show, thread nets that I wanted to try out on troublesome thread, a chalk marker for my friend, a chalk pounce for me, a cutting board which swivels which was reduced quite a lot, but if it does not work well I have the ability (Mr Chaos ) to get it sorted out, some fabric samples which are great for little projects like bag making, some other fabric to complete a baby quilt, fabric in the paper bag is for a secret project, and some thread, well quite a bit of thread actually. I will let you know if Wonderfil is wonderful, it certainly looks it compared to another thread.

I had a really lovely day at Malvern, I met Trish on the coach and chatted all the way there, having found a person to take all my quilts for Japan from me( thank you Stitch Witch they were getting heavy!) I then was free to enjoy looking at lovely quilts and shop for quilting goodies. Sadly while we were permitted to photograph quilts we are not permitted to upload them to any web sites so I wont be able to share my favourites with you.

I hope to share my secret project with you soon.

Till next time Liz

Today I shall be cleaning the house it has been sadly neglected the last few weeks and I need to rediscover the surfaces that lie beneath the dust and carpets that are hidden bya layer of threads. I have already done the dining room, damp dusted, hoovered and everything. One down several more to go.

Wednesday, 18 May 2011

There are few benefits of waking up at 2 am with a sore throat and runny nose but blogging about all the quilty activity in my life this week is one of them (seeing a beautiful almost full moon is another, I am trying to be positive)This is Gaynors quilt she dropped it off saying just meander it so I SID to stabalise and meandered round the flowers in the white blocks which actually was a bit tricky because the petals are quite small, then I thought about changing thread colour and meandering with blue in the blue blocks but decided to make a flame flower instead.

I hope Gayner and the recipient will both be pleased.

Flame flower in the blue blocks. Quite a tight meander in the white flower blocks.I took all the quilts out to photograph them all together including one from Sue then got home and found the green and yellow one sitting on the sofa Grrrr. Never mind I may not have a photo of all the Rugby donations together but I am happy with our contribution, Thank you Jane, Muriel, Sue and Gayner. The quilts will be delivered to Malvern later today.The next post will be all about free motion quilting at Lutterworth last night and Malvern quilt show, I have not been before but everyone I have spoken to says I am in for a good day providing I can stay awake.

Monday, 16 May 2011

I am quite pleased with how this quilt quilted. I love Jane's colour and fabric choices.

Is this my favourite block?

Or this?

Lastly an oriental sampler quilt. Did you know I love red?I feathered this pineapple block

and made petals of this star. I hope both Jane and the recipients like what I have done.One more quilt to finish before Thursday and our visit to Malvern and prep for taking a session at Lutterworth quilters on Wednesday evening. Aghhh, Good job I am busy or I would really be having the colly wobbles about doing this.

Wednesday, 11 May 2011

I went to Rocheberrie quilters on Saturday and had a really nice day, as usual, but was berrated for being a bad blogger (guilty as charged) so I had better show those who are interested what I have been up to. Here is the quilt that I took from our last meeting. The block with small triangles is probably the one I am most happy with in terms of quilting but I had no idea where to gift it too as it didn't seem to be a quilt for Linus or quite right for Quilts for Heros. but sadly for the people of Japan they have become the latest in need of our help. My husbands interest in Koi keeping has taken him to their country on two occasions so it is a cause near to our hearts.

Having completed this I was asking a friend where I could find more tops to finish as I don't have a stash of UFO's and the next thing I know she has a clear out and I have 4 more to complete. Thank you Jane. A shopping trip for batting and backing with my friend Muriel lead to Muriel donating the backing fabric. Thank you ladies what a great team we make.

Here is a lovely kaleidoscope quilt. I quilted flowers in the patterned parts but they don't show up well but the feathered border does. I bought a lovely dark green thread but my machine kept shredding the thread which was very frustrating.

Next up was this row by row quilt and a picture of my favourite block in terms of quilting which was the flower, quilting round the applique at the top was a challenge and just when I thought I was getting the hang of it I vered off a bit.

I am doing the binding on another and loaded what I thought would be the last one and another friend gave me a pretty blue and white quilt with flowers appliqued on, Thank you Gaynor. I have to get them all done by next wednesday because I will be going to Malvern and dropping them off there, so if I am a bit quiet and not blogging you know what I will be doing.

I have also started my Dear Jane quilt I was feeling a bit under the weather and these little blocks are perfect for just doing a bit at a time.

I have also completed my ciggy quilt top (at long last and after a bit of a performance with setting triangles) it caused quite a bit of interest at Rocheberrie and I only really took it to show Jane who got me into the block swap, I promised to post pictures but I will have to wait till next time.I will try not to leave it so long till next time

About Me

I am a long arm quilter and mother to 2 smashing boys one grown up,married and living abroard and one still at home,step mum to a grown up daughter, wife to a very lovely husband. I have always lived in Rugby in Warwickshire and enjoy all fabric crafts I would like to be better organised, live in a clean and tidy house and be a better cook among countless other things.